


here comes the sun (it's all right)

by ladililn



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-23
Updated: 2013-02-23
Packaged: 2017-12-03 08:02:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/696074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladililn/pseuds/ladililn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>four incriminating photos harry keeps on his phone</p>
            </blockquote>





	here comes the sun (it's all right)

**Author's Note:**

> So the structure of this is pretty weird, 'cause it was initially conceived as a 5 times + 1 fic way back when, like, when Reagan was in office. (Okay, not that long ago, but--put it this way: when I wrote this, Call Me Maybe was the hip new thing to reference, and Harry had not yet started viewing his body as a giant doodlepad. Yes, this predates every single one of his 27 tattoos.) I finally decided that there was no way those last two sections were going to get written, ever, and got sick of there being only one document in my "completed" folder, so I'm just posting it as-is. Sorry for the datedness and the fact that no one has ever published a 4 times + 0 fic, ever, because that's weird.
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. I do not own One Direction. Title and cut text very obviously from the Beatles.

i.

It’s a slow lazy morning, just the type Harry likes best, and the sun is beginning to seep through the yellow curtains, painting all the ugly hotel furniture liquid gold.  They don’t have anything to do until after lunch, hours and hours away still, so Harry doesn’t even bother moving when he feels Louis slip from the bed, just squeezes his eyes shut and cocoons himself in the warmth of the sun and the sheets and the familiar sounds of Louis moving about the room.

The soft but insistent buzz of his phone causes him to stir at last.  He rolls over onto Louis’ side of the bed, stays sprawled there with his face smushed into Louis’ pillow as he reads the text.

“I knew you were awake,” Louis accuses.  Harry shifts onto his back again and grins lazily at Louis’ reflection in the mirror on the door that leads into the bathroom.

“What’s your point.”  His voice still feels too sleep-slurred to bother with inflection, but Louis can always understand him anyway.

“Nothing, you’re just a lazy bum.”

“Shut up and take a shower.”

“Touchy, touchy.”

Harry hums in response as his phone buzzes again; he holds it above his face to type a reply.  After a minute Louis disappears into the bathroom and Harry can hear the sound of the sink, which means Louis is brushing his teeth, probably using Harry’s toothpaste as revenge for Harry stealing the last of his favorite shampoo.  Louis doesn’t even like Harry’s toothpaste, thinks it tastes a bit _too_ “minty strong,” but they both know it’s the principle of the thing.

“Hazza,” Louis says, appearing in the doorway, down to just his pants.  “Did you use up all the conditioner too?”

“Uhm,” Harry says.  He lowers his phone a little closer to his face to squint at some incomprehensible spelling.  “Hold on.”

“Who do you keep texting?” Louis huffs.  Harry can see him out of the corner of his eye, leaning against the doorframe, mostly naked, one hand on his hip as he waits for an answer.  It’s silly and adorable and Harry turns his head to grin at him, but his phone goes off again and he glances back at it almost involuntarily.

“Harryyyyy,” whines Louis.

“Hold on,” Harry says again, hits _send_.  “Sorry.  It’s Niall.”

“Well, maybe you and your mobile and _Niall_ can have a nice little threeway in the shower then, but best of luck with no conditioner.”

Harry grins.  “You inviting me to your shower?”

“Maybe, if you can _tear yourself away_ from your technology.  We’re all getting extremely concerned, young Harold, you know it’s quite the problem with today’s youth—”

“Mm,” Harry says, half-listening again as he replies to another text.

He feels the bed dip down beside him, and keeps his eyes on his phone mostly just to mess with Louis, at this point.  Then the bed dips down on his other side, too, and Louis is right above him, straddling Harry’s hips with his knees, looking down at him sternly.  Harry tries not to smile.

“Do you mind,” he says.

Louis grabs the phone out of his hand, holds it high above his head.

“Hey!” Harry says, reaching for it.  It’s not worth actually making the effort to sit up, though, so he just claws uselessly at the air.

“I’m cutting you off,” says Louis, very seriously.  “You’ve got a dangerous addiction, Hazza, and the first step is admitting it.  Or denial.  I’m not really sure, I’ll have to ask Liam.”

Harry gives up and pouts, still trying to smother the smile that can’t help but appear when Louis is so close and practically naked on top of him and _smirking_ like that.  Still.  He has his principles, just like Louis with the toothpaste.  He folds his arms over his chest, awkward in this particular position.

“Give it back.”

“No.”

“Just let me finish this text to Zayn,” he insists.  “Then all done, promise.”

Louis sighs.  “With Niall too?”

“Yes,” Harry says.  “I’ll tell them both you’re terribly needy and clingy and demanding and can’t stand to have my attention anywhere but on you.”

“That’s my boy,” Louis says, dropping Harry’s phone onto his bare chest.  He amuses himself threading his fingers through Harry’s curls while Harry taps out two quick texts, giving Niall and Zayn a (hopefully) slightly less whipped-sounding version of the story he’d promised.

He snaps the phone shut, twists under Louis to put it back on the bedside table, and catches sight of them both in the mirror under Louis’ arm.  He’s surprised at how he looks, smiling and bright-eyed, hair every which way as usual, totally naked except for the white sheets twisted around his legs and snaking up over a hipbone like the drapery on a Greek statue.  But it’s the sight of Louis that really grabs his attention: Louis kneeling over him, the deep sway of his back almost feline, the way his head is tilted down and how he’s smiling at Harry, soft and mischievous and fond and suggestive all at once.  Harry loves the slender fluid shape of him, loves the way his body seems to curve around Harry, loves the sunlight streaming through the windows and turning the wisps and ends of Louis’ hair translucent.  Harry laughs for no reason, thumbs at his phone and takes a picture of them in the mirror.  The flash obscures his own face almost completely, but it doesn’t matter.

He sets the phone too close to the edge of the table and it drops to the floor, but he doesn’t bother with it, settles back between Louis’ hands on either side of his face, lets his own hands slide lazily up to rest on Louis’ hips.  He tilts his head up and accepts the kiss that follows, light at first and then deeper, deeper, pressing him back into Louis’ pillow and Louis’ scent and Louis’ everything.  He can taste his toothpaste on Louis’ tongue as he kisses him and kisses him and the room slowly floods with sunlight.

 

ii.

They get gelato in Italy, because it seems like the thing to do.  Zayn and Louis both claim not to want any, but Louis being Louis changes his mind five minutes later.

“C’mon Hazza, give me a taste, just one little lick, I promise,” he wheedles, chin on Harry’s shoulder.  Liam gives them a sidelong glance, the way he always does these days when they’re in public and people are around and Harry and Louis get a little too affectionate.  Harry knows Liam’s only looking out for them, but he can’t really be bothered to give a shit right now; it’s not like seeing them like this could possibly cement in anyone’s mind the nature of Harry and Louis’ relationship (though he supposes it couldn’t do anything  to throw them off the scent either).

“Sorry,” he says to Louis’ pleading eyes.  “It’s got cinnamon and pepper in.”

Louis’ chin immediately leaves his shoulder, and he glares at Harry’s gelato cup as though it’s personally offended him.

“Your tastes are _so weird_ ,” Niall says.  His own triple-scoop monstrosity is lilting dangerously to one side, a fitting if unintentional tribute to the famous monument they’re currently visiting.

“You did it on purpose, didn’t you,” Louis says, an idle accusation.  “You just don’t like having to share.”

“Selfish, really,” says Zayn.

“You said you didn’t want any!” Harry protests.

“You’re a terrible friend,” Louis continues, “absolutely terrible.  No concern for my wellbeing at all.”

“Aw, Harry, you’ve made him sad!” says Niall.  Louis sniffles his agreement.

Harry rolls his eyes, licks a long stripe around the base of his gelato to keep it from dripping down his hand.  They’ve got twenty minutes of free time before they have to leave, which means twenty more minutes of riffing on stupid ridiculous things like differences in gelato preferences as though they’re great acts of personal betrayal.  That’s how they usually are, and he doesn’t _mind_ , but he does want to eat his gelato in peace.

“You can have some of mine, Lou,” Liam says, in the voice of a savior.  “If you want.  It’s only chocolate.”

Louis bounds over to him in an instant, closes his hand over Liam’s to bring the cone close to him and takes several big, messy, joyous licks.

“Argh!” Liam says, but he’s laughing, too, “you’re licking my fingers, you animal.”

“But look how happy you’ve made him,” Niall says, joking-fond.

“Ecstatic,” Louis agrees, planting an even sloppier chocolatey kiss on Liam’s cheek.  Liam grins and doesn’t bother wiping it off right away.

“Hear that, Haz?” he teases.  He wraps an arm around Louis’ shoulder, pulling him in tight.  “I’m his new favorite.”

“Now now,” Louis says, “we mustn’t fight over me, boys.  No one here is my favorite.  Except Harry, of course.”

“Thank you,” Harry says.

“I made you happy though,” Liam insists.  “Harry made you sad and I fixed it.”

“Yes,” Louis allows.

“I make him a different sort of happy,” Harry says mildly, causing Niall to choke on his gelato.

Liam laughs and lets it go, and they spend the next fifteen minutes overdramatizing the pigeons fighting over bread crumbs before leaving for their interview.  They get lined up on a couch as soon as they arrive, just like usual, controlling nothing, moved about like chess pieces until the network people get just the configuration they want: Niall Zayn Harry Liam Louis.  Louis complains dramatically about being “shunted off to the end, naturally, unwanted and alone,” which the interviewer overhears and worries at.

“Oh, if you feel you need to move…” she says in a pleasantly heavy accent, hands fluttering about nervously in her lap.  Liam, always the gentleman, steps in to reassure her.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, draping an arm across the back of the couch and squeezing Louis’ shoulder.  “It’s good that he’s next to me.  I’m the only one who can really make Louis _happy_ anyway.”

He says it with a wink at Harry, and they all laugh, even the interviewer who doesn’t understand the joke, but Harry thinks _that’s it_ and he decides to get his revenge.

That night after they’ve kissed the Italian sun-sweat off each other’s skin and imagined they could still taste the chocolate on their tongues and tangled themselves up in _sheets hands hair lips_ and Harry has come apart, shuddering and shattered, in Louis’ eager mouth, Louis falls back onto the pillows, looking sleepy and sated and content.  Harry stares at him in the moonlight, traces idle patterns onto Louis’ chest with his fingertips, admires the small helpless smile spread across Louis’ lips, the shadows his eyelashes cast across his cheekbones, the artfully disastrous sweep of hair across his forehead, the little bit of Harry’s come drying at the corner of Louis’ mouth that means _mine_ , and then he takes his phone out and snaps a picture and sends it to Liam with the caption _now look who’s made him happy, bitch_.

 

iii.

This time, when Louis crawls into bed with two cups of tea and reaches for the remote, it’s a Thursday night and there’s a Top 100 countdown of the best Beatles songs on 4Music.  Harry curls into Louis’ side automatically, lets Louis work his hands into Harry’s curls and pull and tug as he likes.  They sip their tea and hum along to the songs, and during the frequent commercial breaks Louis runs a cold foot up and down Harry’s leg just to annoy him and they exchange lazy, indolent kisses.  It’s the perfect mixture of silly and ridiculous and romantic and sublime, which Harry thinks actually sums up their relationship pretty well.

They sing along during “All You Need is Love” because they have to, and then Louis sings “Please, Please Me” purposefully and recklessly off-key, poking Harry hard in the side for no reason at all.  Harry grabs Louis’ hand and bites his finger.  Louis gasps.

“Harreh!” he cries.  “Harreh, you bit my finger!  Harry _bit_ my _finger_!”

“Rawr,” Harry says, because why not, and starts gnawing on Louis’ pinky.

“Harry, you _animal_ , what am I to do with you?  I’m afraid you really are utterly hopeless.”

Harry nips at his thumb and grins, feral.  Louis yanks his hand out of Harry’s grip.

“I’ll just have this back, thanks very much—hang on then, what’s this?”

It takes Harry a moment to get what Louis is referring to; in that space between understanding Louis grabs Harry’s hand and stares at the palm.

“Oh,” Harry says, mouth gone slightly dry.  “Sorry.  That’s just—girl at the pub today.  Gave me her number.  You know.  Sorry.”

It’s not normal, Harry knows, to allow blonde girls in pubs with coy eyes to scribble their numbers on your hand with felt-tip marker when you’re taken and you’ve been taken and you plan to be taken for a very long time, but he’s used to it, used to biting back the _sorry, babe, but I won’t be calling you, too busy sending stupid texts to my secret boyfriend like: you’re shoes untied and I love you._

“I’ll go wash it off,” Harry says, trying to pull his hand back, but Louis doesn’t let go.

“No, I’ve a better idea,” he murmurs.  Harry looks into Louis’ eyes, blue and unreadable and not the least bit coy, at least in that moment.  He swallows, leans forward, presses a kiss to Louis’ mouth, hard and declarative.

“Stay here, take your shirt off,” Louis says, bounding up from the bed and running off somewhere into the _other_ of their flat.  Harry just does as he’s told, because he stopped questioning Louis the day he met him, maybe never even questioned him to begin with.  That’s the thing—everyone questions Louis, all the time, never realizing how pointless it is, how they’re always going to get swept up into the tornado eventually.  Might as well let go and enjoy the ride.  He twists his shirt in his hands and rubs at the numbers on his palm until he realizes he’s memorized them on accident.

Louis returns after a few moments of loud rustling and a bit of mild swearing from the kitchen, marker in hand.

“Turn over.  No, on your front,” he says, impatient already.

Harry grabs a pillow to hug and tries to rationalize away his quickening heartbeat as Louis straddles his thighs before he’s even gotten properly settled.  He’s pretty sure this isn’t just a really weird lead-up to sex, despite their respective positions, because if it is they’re going to have to have an extremely awkward conversation afterwards about what turns Louis on.  Of course Harry would go out and get a million girls’ numbers written on his hand if it led to more sex with Louis, but it would be pretty weird, is all.

“Hold still,” Louis says, which is how Harry realizes he’d been squirming.  He feels the sudden cold press of permanent marker then, low on his back, right above the swell of his bum.  It takes him a moment to process, then:

“Are you giving me a _tramp stamp_?” he says, something between indignant and somehow unsurprised.

“I’m giving you _my_ number,” Louis says in a voice rich with satisfaction.  “But bigger.  Stop wiggling.”

Harry sighs and relaxes.

“I know your number, tosser,” he says, but fondly, because he can’t help but be anything else.  A new worry strikes him: “Wait, is this going to come off?”

He can practically hear Louis roll his eyes.

“No, I am essentially giving you a permanent marker tattoo.  If you’re incapable of washing yourself in the shower I’m happy to help, darling.”  Louis caps the marker and leans forward to press a kiss into Harry’s shoulder blade, apologizing for the insult even as he makes it.

“All done?” Harry asks.

“Mm,” Louis confirms, sitting back onto Harry’s thighs again, probably to admire his handiwork.  “Should’ve written it backwards, so you could see it in the mirror.  Ah well.”

“But how will I even remember whose number it is?  I get so many,” Harry jokes, then immediately wishes he hadn’t.  He doesn’t know how to interpret Louis’ silence, and Louis’ weight on his legs keeps him from twisting around to check his expression.

“Good point,” Louis says after a moment, marking his previous quiet as nothing more than contemplative.  Muscles loosening with relief, Harry doesn’t protest as Louis uncaps the marker again.  This time, Harry concentrates on deciphering the words as they’re written onto his skin: _Louis Tomlinson_ , just below where he wrote his number.

“Oh dear,” Louis says.  He sounds far too delighted to be sincere.  “Now it just looks like I’m marking my property.”

“Aren’t you though?” Harry says, exasperated, muffled into his pillow.

“True.  You know what, I’ll just make it a bit clearer.”

Before he can protest— _now wait, don’t you think you’re getting a bit carried away, we’re missing the programme, Lou_ —the marker is pressing into his skin again, and again he can feel what it is before Louis tells him.

“Did you just draw an arrow pointing to my arse?”

“ _Property of…_ ” Louis narrates as he squeezes the words around what he’s already written.  “There’s still room for a proper tramp stamp, if you’d like.  Butterfly or one of those flowery things?”

“You can’t manage either,” Harry says pitilessly.  “I’ve seen your attempts at drawing, Lou.  Tragic.”

“Brat,” Louis says, “just for that you’ll have to guess.”

Louis sings along to “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” as he works, gets half the words mixed up and keeps breaking into the chorus too early.  Harry picks at a tiny piece of down poking up through the comforter and doesn’t correct him, then remembers he’s supposed to be paying attention to what Louis’ drawing.

“Er,” he says, “is it a butterfly?”

“No it’s Kevin Bacon’s face,” Louis says, impassive.

“Is not.”

“Alright fine, good guessing, it is a slightly lopsided butterfly but some butterflies are just like that, it is its imperfections that make it beautiful, na na na na na na na na na na, et cetera.  I think I’ve really done some of the best work of my artistic career back here, on your back, it’s too bad you can’t see.  You could look in the mirror I suppose but it might be a bit difficult, and anyway it’d all be backwards and then the butterfly would be lopsided in the totally wrong direction.”

“Mm,” Harry hums, enjoying the way words tumble out of Louis’ mouth, rapid-fire and rambling, too fast for either of them to really keep up with.  It’s comforting more in its familiarity than in its actual content, even though Harry didn’t know he needed to be comforted in the first place.  “You can keep going,” he says.  He’s not sure if he means with the talking or the writing or just the being.

Louis stills on top of him, his fingers pausing in the middle of tapping out a rhythm on Harry’s back to go with whatever Beatles song is playing now that Harry doesn’t recognize.

“Really?” he says.

“Yeah.”

The thing with Louis is that he never really asks anyone’s permission to do anything, and whenever anybody gives it to him anyway he seems both breathlessly unsure and tentatively delighted.  Sometimes Harry remembers this during sex and it always turns out brilliant: he’ll say _how about you suck me off now, Lou, yeah?_ and probably Louis was heading down that road anyway but the very fact of Harry’s asking for it gives him such enthusiasm for the job that within moments he makes Harry forget his own name and all that’s left is pure sensation and Harry’s own ineloquence running a litany in his head, some variation of _fuck yes fuck yes right there yes good Louis oh my god more fuck yes yes yes_.

“Okay,” is all Louis says, and then the marker is on his skin again, cold and tickling but still kind of pleasant.  Louis says the words out loud as he writes them, shapes them out of air and ink, slowly so his hand can match the pace of his mouth, whispering into Harry’s ear.  His breath is hot and every once and a while he pauses to kiss the words he’s just written, to lick long stripes up Harry’s spine, to bury his nose in the nape of Harry’s neck and bite him gently on the shoulder.

Somewhere there’s got to be some sort of secret code language that teaches you the difference between maudlin and romantic but Harry and Louis have never learned to speak it, which is why neither of them ever really knows when they’re actually being sincere and when not, which is why the first thing Louis draws is a giant heart on Harry’s left shoulder in which he writes _H + L_ like he’s carving their love into a tree sometime in the fifties.  Then he writes _here’s my number, so call me maybe_ around the edges of his lopsided butterfly, and that sets him off on a spree of scrawling lyrics as fast as he can think of them: sometimes their own, all of the _na na na na_ ’s from “What Makes You Beautiful” (plus a few extra when he loses count) and then his own part in “Moments”, because: _Paul says he’s going to make me write lines if I keep singing “Travis” (and I might as well do it here instead of wasting paper, I’m such a good person, very environmentally friendly)_ which inspires him to write _wrong size shoe_ in a crooked slant down Harry’s spine.  He works in a few Beatles lines, first the chorus of “All You Need is Love” and then _so you say you want a revolution, well you know we all wanna change the world_ with a meandering hand when the program announces its number thirteen pick.  He borrows words from Train and Ed and one of Harry’s “weirdo bands, the Magnetic Whatevers.”  He coaxes Harry into reciting the first verse of the song Harry pretends he’s not writing for their next album, carefully transcribes the words exactly as Harry sings them even though Harry insists they’re no good yet, rubs his thumb into the still-wet ink to smear the meaning into Harry’s skin and tells him, _shut up they’re brilliant_.

When he runs out of lyrics he switches to random words, _peanut butter birthday penguin April_ , and then he begins writing out birthdays, Louis’ and Harry’s and Liam’s and Zayn’s and Niall’s and even One Direction’s.  He starts writing down the places they’ve been but gets bored somewhere between Texas and Florida and settles into profanity instead, writing _cock goes here_ next to the arrow he drew earlier pointing to Harry’s arse and then _fuck me please_ in loopy cursive with two exclamation points and a smiley face.  Harry complains _that’s not very poetic_ so Louis butchers Shakespeare just under his right shoulder blade, _but soft what light thru yo ~~u~~ nder window breaks, it is the lamp and Juliet turned it on, to be or not to be, that is the winter of our beautiful friendship, Luke I am your father_.

He writes all up and down and in straight lines and waves and spirals, and on the backs of Harry’s arms and up into the curls at the nape of his neck, and when he runs out of room he squeezes short statements in between what he’s already written, sappy stupid stuff like _Hazza and Lou 5eva_ and _Mr. and Mr._ _Larry Stylinson_ and then just _I love you_ , over and over and over.  After a certain point it becomes less writing and more tracing over what he’s already written, first with his fingertips and then his lips and tongue and teeth.  The TV is making a big deal of announcing the number-one Beatles song of all time but Harry stopped listening somewhere between “Hey Jude” and “Something”, or maybe it was “Yesterday”, it’s hard to remember with the way his brain has gone all muzzy.  His heartbeat is too-fast-too-loud again, responding to Louis’ every touch like a finely-tuned guitar, building stronger and stronger with each note.  He wonders if Louis knows the sort of effect he has on him and then thinks, _of course he does_.

“You should get this made into a tattoo,” Louis breathes into his ear, “keep it forever,” and bites that ear.  His hands are resting on the small of Harry’s back, generating far more heat than should be possible, spreading out all across Harry’s back and through body and to his furthest extremities.  Harry laughs a little breathlessly and grabs his phone off the bedside table, passes it back.

“Take a picture instead,” he says, and Louis does, and as soon as the flash goes off Louis is tossing it aside, pressing himself down on top of Harry, kissing his neck like he means it, pushing his trousers down, and Harry moans without meaning to, already half swept away.

 

iv.

They’re coming out with yet another book, apparently, the same exclusive-pictures-and-brand-new-quotes-and-never-before-phrased-exactly-this-way origin-story bullshit that they overmarket and overprice and oversell, making Harry feel irrationally guilty on behalf of all the legitimate writers they overshadow on the bestsellers lists.  Usually the actual members of the band have absolutely nothing to do with the creation of these things, but this time they’re each given a disposable camera and told to fill it up completely with pictures of anything they want, to go in the book.

“Won’t the pictures be awful quality, though?” Liam asks, even as Niall snaps his first picture (of his food, unsurprisingly).

“They won’t be as high-quality as the other pictures in the book, no, but that’s what’s so great about this idea: they’ll be really authentic.  We’re going to choose the best ones and just use a few of them throughout the book.  We want this book to really be authentic, to come directly from you.”

Harry hadn’t known _authenticity_ was so vital to a product none of them have the slightest bit of input or interest in, but whatever.  He can’t help but pity whichever marketing person came up with this idea, because whatever they were expecting to get out of it probably didn’t take into account the band’s collective and not-particularly-well-hidden vast immaturity.  They spend a whole week forgetting their assignment completely, and the entire week after that butchering it beyond recognition.

“You two are so cute,” coos Niall, after Harry feeds Louis a bite of cake off his fork, intentionally oversweet and obnoxious.  “That was like a Kodak moment right there.”

Zayn lets out a bark of laughter.  He grabs one of the cameras lying on the counter, left by someone as a stern and present reminder, and winds the wheel.

“Hey, yeah, do it again, lads,” he says.

“Can’t we just pretend?  Louis’ already eaten like half of my piece, _and_ his own,” Harry complains.

Louis pretends offense, curling into Liam’s chest to shield himself from Harry’s cruelty.  Liam gives him a sympathetic pat on the head and steals his glass of milk.

“Are you calling me _fat_ , Hazza?  I am shocked.  Shocked and also quite appalled.”

“I’m not,” protests Harry.  “Here, c’mon, take some.”  He holds his fork out again, laden with cake, an offering to appease a wrathful god.  Maybe it’s mad, the way he feels a pull to relent immediately even in the most playful of circumstances, but he can never really bring himself to pretend hostility towards Louis for more than a moment.

Zayn snaps the picture, and then another when Louis leans in to kiss Harry on the cheek in thanks.

“You know they won’t actually use either of those,” Harry says, even as he grins.  “Too gay.”

“Too _authentic_ , I think you mean,” Louis says, and they all laugh.

A moment later Liam spills water down his front and Niall crows out, “Kodak moment!”

The next thing to become a Kodak moment is Niall’s half-eaten second slice of cake, and then Zayn pulling a funny face, and then a piece of lint on the floor, but that one only by accident.  By the end of the day, rules have been abandoned for swirling chaos, and anything in the world can be a Kodak moment.  The oven.  The clouds.  Louis attempting a cartwheel.  It’s not actually _funny_ , because there’s no real joke there, but it’s not like they need one.  They just like the release.

Unfortunately for Marketing, what had been envisioned as a bold move for authenticity rapidly devolves into the five of them running around screaming “Kodak moment!” at anything they see.  Just one more incomprehensible inside joke among countless with which they shape their own insular universe.  Most of Liam’s Kodak moments involve Zayn’s hair looking slightly less than perfect.  Harry’s pretty sure Niall uses up almost all of his pictures on food.

“Kodak moment!” Louis screams, running into Liam at five in the morning with a toothbrush in his mouth and his trousers on backwards.

“Kodak moment,” Harry whispers gleefully as he lies in wait for Niall to come out of the shower.

“Kodak moment,” Zayn tries on Paul, who promptly confiscates his camera and sends him back to the makeup chair.

Like most of their silly little games, devised either to keep them from madness or as part of the descent into it, this one is fast and fleeting, and they run out of steam—and film—after only about a week or so.  At least three of them have used up all their pictures completely, and at least 90% of those pictures are probably completely unusable. 

It doesn’t really matter; it’s not exactly on the forefront of Harry’s mind as he journeys his way down Louis’ body in bed that night, nuzzles in against the tight fabric of Louis’ jeans, eases him out of his boxer-briefs, licks his lips, gets to work.  Louis is characteristically appreciative, and vocal in his expression of that appreciation, sighing out Harry’s name and _yes fuck_ and _feels so fucking good, Christ_.

“You look so fucking beautiful, Haz,” Louis breathes, like he just can’t believe it, like he’s in awe.  And then he laughs.

Harry widens his eyes in what he hopes will convey offense, because laughter is not exactly the response he generally aims for when giving blowjobs.  Admonishing, he flicks his tongue against the head and takes Louis deeper, in retaliation.  Louis’ laughter breaks off almost immediately.

“Sorry,” Louis gasps.  “Just—you’re so _pretty_.  Kodak moment, yeah?”

And then he—absolute fucker that he is—grabs something off of the table, and Harry’s just about to pull off and protest, because giving the marketing people pictures of Niall sitting on the toilet is one thing but this is quite another, except it’s not the crappy disposable camera that Louis grabs, of course, it’s Harry’s phone, so instead Harry hollows his cheeks and stares up through his eyelashes so Louis can get the perfect shot.  Louis comes about ten seconds later and Harry swallows him all down, drop by drop.


End file.
